The current application is directed to crosscutting functionalities, including byte-code instrumentation, error logging, and other such crosscutting functionalities. These crosscutting functionalities generally violate, or run counter to, modern code-development strategies and programming-language features that seek to partition logic into hierarchically organized compartments and modules with related functionalities, attribute values, and other common features. In particular, the current application is directed to byte-code instrumentation introduced into a computer program for collecting data, such as execution traces, elapsed times for routine execution, and other information at run time for logging and subsequently manual, semi-automatic, or automatic analysis. The current application is particularly directed to byte-code instrumentation that automatically filters collected data in order to log only data having greatest value for subsequent analysis.